ON BEING A MAN

Thin lines hold that hairline fractured thing,
so tentative, so far from the man-up roar,
broken before and held together now,
stitch stretched and questionably convincing.
To be a man, to be fallen from the myths,
to be broken, not invincibly whole,
to be deep bruised far from expectations,
secretly lost in a bewildering world.
To be a man, to be a channel of tears,
worn raw to  strange sympathetic symphonies,
moved as much by beauty as by pain:
stitch stretched, breaking, impossibly reaching.